Translated material
Annual disgrace
SS men marched through Riga
The procession through the central streets of Riga of Latvian SS legionnaires from the Second World War and their current neo-Nazi admirers still took place yesterday, despite the authorities’ ban. First there was a memorial service in the Dome Cathedral, and in a semi-closed mode: photojournalists and camera operators were not allowed inside. Then about a hundred people walked with flowers and songs through the historical part of the city to the Freedom Monument. At the monument, the area in front of which was previously divided by barriers, activists from the far-right organization “Everyone is Latvian!” lined up with flags in their hands, greeting the former SS men.The day before, the capital’s leaders swore that they would only allow “private laying of flowers at the monument.” However, the police, who gathered in the surrounding narrow streets of the capital of Latvia almost more than the marchers, did not disperse them. But the troublemakers were members of the Latvian Anti-Fascist Committee (LAK), who chanted at the monument in striped “prisoner” caps: “Hitler is kaput!” For slogans and whistling, the police detained Riga City Council deputy Viktor Dergunov and LAC members Joseph Koren and Eduard Goncharov.
The police visited the LAC premises: there, under the pretext of checking documents during the Nazi march, they detained anti-fascists from the Estonian “Night Watch”. Of these, only Dozor activist Maxim Reva, who was in an Estonian prison for defending the Tallinn Bronze Soldier, made it to the march of legionnaires. Five more Estonian delegates, including political activist and journalist Dmitry Klensky, were not allowed into Latvia, being considered extremists. In total, 13 people were detained that day for “disobedience to the police” or “for identification purposes.” Eight of them had their faces covered with scarves - “for appearing on the street in uniform.” The Vremya Novostey police clarified that the uniform was both Nazi and Red Army - worn as a sign of protest.
Member of the European Parliament from Latvia Tatyana Zhdanok, who participated in the confrontation and then rescued the detained anti-fascists, told VN: “I am glad that the outrage that happens in Latvia every year has now been seen by representatives of anti-fascist organizations from Estonia, Finland and Poland, as well as my colleague Italian Giulietto Chiesa. We are outraged that fascists and their henchmen are marching in the center of a European capital.”
Two divisions of the Latvian SS Legion - the 15th and 19th - were created in February 1943 by order of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler. On March 16, 1944, these units at Velikie Luki entered into battle with the Red Army. In 1998, the Latvian Parliament established an official holiday on March 16 - the Day of Remembrance of Latvian Soldiers, but two years later it canceled this scandalous decision.